Her Pain
by Annabelle Crane
Summary: Who doesn't like looking at wedding pictures?


Title: Her Pain  
Author: Annabelle Crane  
Website: Artistic Blunders - http/artistic.ensanity.us  
Story URL: http/artistic.ensanity.us/archives/2005/04/herpain.php  
Rating: T  
Genre: Angst, and then some more angst just to top it off.  
Keywords: Bobby, Alex  
Archive: Umm... Well Amorous Intent of course, Artistic Blunders (cause if I can't post it at my own site where can I?), umm... If you really want it all you have to do is ask nice, oh and give a lot of praise! I'm all about the praise!  
Spoilers: None that I know of...  
Summary: Who doesn't like looking at pictures?

Disclaimer: NBC pretty much owns my soul, oh yeah they own Law & Order: Criminal Intent along with Dick Wolfe and any other number of people who own rights to the show. They all own tiny bits of my soul. I have no money to speak of so please don't sue me. I promise to put the detectives back, maybe slightly more emotional bruised, where I found them.

Author's Note: This story is un-beta read and is the first one that I have written for Law & Order: Criminal Intent as thus I will give a little intro to myself. I do try to proof read but English is not my first language, it's Spanish, and even though I'm having a hard time speaking Spanish now because I've been in the USA for so long; regardless the fact remains that that my grammar skills arrive at a level just below pathetic. If you are a beta-reader please contact me: Annabelle (space to prevent spam). I like non-harsh beta-readers as I have very low self-esteem and ones who just go ahead and correct my grammar but tell me where I screwed up because I'm looking to improve. If this describes you then please e-mail me (hint, hint).

Dedication: To Laney of because she got me hooked on this show and also because she finally finished the upgrade to MovableType on my site and told me how to make my site skin-able. It is only because of her that you are reading this story, because if my site wasn't up I wouldn't post this. I like to have somewhere people can go to see more about me. Since I love praise!

Feedback: It's good for my soul and yours. If you like this I might be conned, bride, or otherwise pushed into writing more LOCI-fic. The only catch is that I'm a totally feedback whore, I live for it. Please either publish a comment on my site where the story located or send it to Annabelle (spaces to prevent spam)

On to the story...

**Her Pain**  
_by Annabelle Crane_

He always liked wedding pictures.

People were happy in wedding photos, well for the most part anyway. They were beautiful, whether they were dressed exquisitely in the latest designer with the most intricate hair styles in front of the "it" place to be married, or they were in second hand suits and generational wedding dresses at a courthouse. It never seemed to matter because at that moment when the flash went off and the shutter clicked open and then closed they were the two happiest people in the world and that picture captured that moment so it was forever frozen in time. At that moment it seemed like nothing could ever go wrong and the only thing that was ahead of them was the happily ever after that children always hear about in fairytales.

Many people believed these moments to be private, something they want to share with their family and friends, but not a stranger, and not after something awful happened, like divorce, or worse, death. That's why Robert Goren had never expected what happened, why even now as he was sitting in his car outside of her apartment he was still kicking himself for his senseless habit of sticking his nose where it inventible didn't belong, and why he could not erase the pain that he saw flash in her eyes for the briefest moment, pain that he had put there.

Damn it, he thought while he slammed his fist into the steering wheel. He hadn't meant for any of it to happen. All he wanted was the damn file because he had a theory about their current case and he hadn't realized that she had taken it with her. All that was suppose to happen was that she would open the door, roll her eyes at him and give him a small smile and joke that he couldn't keep his hands still for more than two seconds while she went to retrieve the folder for him, and that's all that had happened until he saw the box. It was just sitting there on the side table to his right in the front hall and it was on the verge of tittering over. Then with a thud it did just that spilling all of its contents on the floor.

She hadn't heard it crash to the ground, the sound of the little mementoes scattering across the wooden floor all around his feet, she was in the kitchen. He had felt bad and so naturally he bent over and started to pick everything up and lay it back inside the box when his had reached over to a white book. It was one of those puffy white albums with lace and ribbons all over the cover and sliver lettering, a wedding album that had fallen open face down on the floor, her wedding album. He looked around and saw that the other objects were all things from a wedding, gift cards, a guest log, the bride and groom from the top of the cake, a knife to cut said cake, and he couldn't help himself, she never talked about him, so he did what he would have done at any crime scene and he flipped the album over and saw the picture.

They were standing on the stone steps of an old church somewhere in New York; the trees in the background were green and heavy with little pink flowers, it was spring time. She was laughing, a glint in her eyes that he only saw once or twice, her hand was on her head trying to hold the veil down while the wind blew around her and the man, he was standing over her, his hand on her waist smiling down at her, with so much love in his eyes. Before he had realized it his hand was flipping the page and on the next page what he saw made him go pale, with all the horrors he had since and experienced in his life he never expected what he saw on that page. He was so oblivious to anything but that picture that he hadn't heard her make her way back from the kitchen until she started speaking and when he looked up he saw the pain flash in her eyes, horror mixed with angry but it was gone as quickly as it came and was replaced with a blank look. She held her hand out with the folder in it and didn't say anything. He wanted to speak but he couldn't find any words forming in his mind. He just stood up and reached out to take the folder. He started to speak but she told him it was alright, she needed to clean up because she was about to go out to visit her sister and nephew, that was his cue, he knew that there was nothing that he could say other than goodbye, so he did just that and turned to leave.

That picture, that had been his undoing. He felt like his whole world was crashing around him and then the guilt hit him because really it wasn't his world that he should be worried about. It was her pain, her loss, not his, she was the one that had to live through it, she was the one that it happened to, but still he felt like it was happening to him. God, was he really that selfish? Was he really that self consumed that he could manage to turn something that didn't even involve him into his own personal crisis? Was he that desperate for attention of any kind that he could turn something that was the most tragic event in her life into something that was happening to him?

How could he not though? That man, her husband, he had never seen him before. He remembered the article in the paper. He did not go to the funeral or wake because the man hadn't been in his precinct and he had not wanted to intrude, so he sent funds like many other officers had, funds for the grieving family. There had been no picture in the newspaper, he would have remembered that, there was a brief mention of where the man grew up, his parents, that there was a wife left behind, but no children, and the full name of the wife was left out. The man's parents were probably the ones who did the write up for the paper, wanting to let the widow grieve in privacy.

So he had no idea when she showed up for the first time in the Major Case Squad division that it was her, that she was the widow, she had gone back to her maiden name. Now though, thinking back on it, he did remember an odd look in her eye when Deakins had introduced them for the first time. There had been the briefest flash of panic and anxiety, but he had just chalked it up to first day jitters and did not think anything of it. Especially after they the came back from their first trip out in the field, when he realized that she was the one person who was going to put up with him, the one person who would be able to follow his leaps and bounds, the person who even though she would be totally exasperated with him half the time wouldn't give up on him, a touchstone.

Now though there was just no way he would to be able to ask her to do that anymore. He couldn't, he had been selfish long enough. Had he any idea he would have never put her in that position in the first place, but he had no clue, for all his brilliance he had never had the slightest inclination. Sure, he had heard the whispers in the office, this was the widow of that poor office, the one that was shot in the line of duty, you know it just happened a few months ago, they caught the bastard though, how awful for her. But he never asked her. She had mentioned it once, and they had talked, but she never really talked about him, her husband, she never said anything real about him, almost like he was just a ghost that had never really been there, they hadn't been married for that long, maybe that's what had made it easy for her to keep working, or maybe it made it worse. All that promise of what was to come, gone in an instant and replaced with an emptiness that ripped away at the soul but that you could never let go for fear of dishonoring the memories.

Maybe working with him helped her. Gave her something back, some of what she lost. No, it couldn't be, now he was just being foolish. He was going to have to put a stop to it, he couldn't keep doing this to her. Not after seeing it, seeing that picture, the man who had been her husband. The image was now burned into his mind and every time he looked at her he would see him and he would feel her pain and he would have to wonder how she could go in day in and day out working along side him. The man in the picture, he had been tall, he had short brown hair that was already being touched with some gray, brown eyed, he was broad shoulder, and almost dwarfed her but held her close to him like a precious gem. If he hadn't know better he would have sworn he was looking at distant relative of his. The hell that she must of gone through working with him, it was too much to think about. To work with someone who looked so much like your dead husband, too unbelievable.

He should go do the right thing, he should call Deakins right now and request a new partner. The man would ask why and he would just laugh at him, like the captain didn't know. He had to have known, maybe not at first but by now Deakins would have heard something, anything. Maybe she had requested a new partner, had started to tell him that it was a mistake for her to move from Vice. What had the captain said to her to convince her to stay? That she was the first partner that had been assigned to him that lasted longer than a week without complaining about his unconventional methods. She probably had not told him the real reason that she wanted the transfer, just sat there and collected herself, nodded and said she would give it another month. Then at the end of each month she would tell herself one more month, she could handle it for one more month. Until the months had turned into years and the twinge that she felt every time she looked at him started to fade and become one with the ghost that lived with her. How could he have been so stupid? Why didn't he see it, just because he didn't want to? That was no excuse.

"Bobby!" There was a sharp tap on his driver side window and she shouted his name.

He looked over and saw her standing there. She still had the blank look on her face. He rolled down his window. "Eames, I..." He couldn't say her name anymore, he couldn't even look at her. Not without guilt.

"Have you been here for the last half hour?" she asked him, the annoyance bubbling through her tone. He just blinked at her. "You have, haven't you? You know when you have to be taken to the hospital for hypothermia because you've been sitting in your car with no heat on the coldest day of the year and Deakins calls me to tell me I'm just gonna to laugh Bobby. I'm just gonna throw my head back and laugh."

"Eames I..." he tried again, still not looking up.

"Go home Bobby," she sighed. "Just go home."

"Eames," he finally was able to make eye contact with her. "It, it was an accident. I didn't mean to... I'm sorry. God, I'm so sorry."

She didn't say anything. Her breathing evened out and sadness started to creep onto her face and she looked away. There was a tear that was forming and she didn't try to stop it. "It's okay. I know." The tear rolled down her cheek but no others followed. "It was so long ago now." She looked back at him and smiled. "It's okay Bobby. But you really need to go home now. Okay? I really don't think I'll be able to explain to Deakins as to why you froze to death sitting in front of my apartment."

"Alex," he tried saying her first name. He hardly ever used it. "I just, I never knew. I didn't mean to."

"Bobby, please," she backed away a little bit. "It's been a rough day. Maybe some other time, okay?"

He knew that was all he was going to get out of her. After all the years of working together he just knew when her brain was about to shut down and just tune out the rest of the world. He also knew that she had forgiven him, that she wasn't going to storm into Deakin's office and demand a new partner tomorrow. Maybe he should do it for her. No, that would just make her mad, she would think that he thought she was weak. God, he was even starting to give himself a headache. Then he realized that she was still standing there waiting for him to say something. "Umm, I, I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Bright and early." She smiled, "Bye!" She walked away and headed to her car.

The smile had been forced, he knew it, but it was a smile none the else and that was something. He rolled up his window and watched as she started up her car and pulled away from the sidewalk. She waved to him as she drove by and he waved back. He sat there for another minute and then he turned his car and headed home.

He had always liked wedding photos, but now, now he never wanted to see another one again.

Well maybe just one other one.


End file.
